Painkilling drugs such as OxyContin were originally prescribed for patients who were at the end of their lives, such as those with terminal cancer. The obvious problem for a pharmaceutical company that provides a painkilling drug to those who have a terminal condition is that these are the very same patients who, by definition, aren’t going to be around in this world for very much longer, which signifies that the drugs so sold aren’t going to represent any sort of growth market.
We fairly think that pharmaceutical companies have an obligation to provide drugs that are beneficial for patients or will serve a true need for them, such as in reducing their discomfort and pain of which, providing that service should be seen as something that has its place. That said, it seems in this capitalistic system that making a profit in a market that doesn’t experience any meaningful growth is not the place for an ambitious pharmaceutical company to be, and because of that, those seeking an avenue for more profit and more revenue took OxyContin to the next level, rightly or wrongly.
There are indeed a fair number of Americans who suffer pain, who believe that the pain they are suffering is chronic, and thus have an abiding interest in seeing that their pain is relieved. This doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request by those suffering such pain, and in acknowledgment that chronic pain is something that should be addressed, the makers of OxyContin believed that they could successfully address such, which, in truth, they efficaciously did, because OxyContin does indeed relieve pain for patients, and does it exceedingly well. However, the fair-minded question would then need to be asked: at what cost?
The thing about the treatment of pain through the usage of a drug such as OxyContin is that the relief is only temporary, and further to the point, the drug does little or nothing to constructively resolve the pain that the patient is experiencing, so that therefore the patient is going to have to continually take that drug in which there could well be negative consequences for the repeated usage of OxyContin, which indeed there were.
The most meaningful problem with OxyContin is that it is highly addictive, in which patients not only build up a tolerance to that drug, but find that they can not function without it, thereby signifying for the makers of OxyContin that the prescription of OxyContin for those claiming to be suffering from chronic pain provided them with a massive market, because not only is the experience of pain somewhat subjective, but there are also numerous Americans that suffer from pain for one reason or another, and to have a drug that was marketed as not being addictive seemed to be a godsend for everyone.
Yet, at the end of the day, the fact is that OxyContin is quite addictive and can, through constant use, create cardiac and respiratory issues, along with the very serious addiction issue itself, and of which there were a multitude of Americans who had no business being prescribed OxyContin in the first place but desired such, because of the euphoric feelings they received, all pretty much done under the misimpression that OxyContin was not addictive and was considered to be safe, even though we now know that the usage and misusage of OxyContin lead to many thousands of deaths.